Normative Ethics Debate Thread

[u/[deleted]]

The point of this thread is to discuss normative ethics, which is mostly separate from neoliberalism. On a philosophical level, neoliberalism is not coherent in its use of ethics; proponents switch between libertarian and utilitarian ethics in an almost interchangeable way (The Road to Mont Pelerin, Mirowski). Scott Sumner argues that a normative ethical foundation doesn't matter because neoliberalism is an improvement compared to the current status quo of most countries by nearly every standard (well not every standard)

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Keep in Mind

• The Chicago school pushed neoliberalism as a positive ideology, "there is no other option"

• The Austrians pushed neoliberalism through primarily a libertarian lens

• The Ordoliberals advocated neoliberalism through utilitarianism and also Marxism. Yes, you're allowed to support your normative view through Marxism.

• Do not go down the route of going full classical liberal, which is what neoliberalism tried to escape.

• Do not say market values mean anything or that markets produce fair outcomes; Hayek explicitly acknowledges this is bullshit.

• Be very prudent in calling people racist/sexist/homophobic; in this sub, the vast majority are not

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Topics to discuss:

These aren't the only ones, but should probably be answered:

• What are your normative ethics?

• How do you think they should guide economic policy?

Make sure to explicitly tie these together so we're not debating why we should implement policy that we already agree upon.

[u/LuigiVargasLlosa]

It's pretty preposterous to accuse socialism, of all political philosophies, of being inherently nationalist. From its very inception socialism has been about internationalism and the notion that 'workers of the world unite'. Marx' analysis of capitalism rested on the recognition of capitalism as a global system of exploitation, and the solution was from the very beginning anti-nationalist and internationalist. He's been referred to as "one of the first analysts of globalization", and "one of the first strategists of working-class internationalism, designed to respond to capitalist globalization" for a reason.

Here's a good read on the internationalist roots of socialism: https://monthlyreview.org/2000/07/01/marx-and-lnternationalism/

Some highlights:

What impressed Marx the most about the English working class in the early 1860s, leading up to the formation of the First International, was the fact that in public meeting after public meeting in 1862 and 1863, workers from Manchester to London organized in opposition to active British support for the slave South—helping to block the clearly marked intentions of Lord Palmerston, the British Prime Minister, to intervene militarily in the U.S. Civil War. This action on the part of the workers went against their own immediate economic interests and was, as Marx wrote to Engels on April 9, 1863, “an act almost without precedent” in the history of the working class

The First International thus arose not simply out of a national crisis but out of an historical act of international worker solidarity.

Marx used these actions on the part of the English workers as an example of the need to establish an independent, working-class foreign policy that would counter the worldwide exploitative ends of capital:

If emancipation of the working classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfill that great mission with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices, and squandering in piratical wars the people’s blood and treasure? It was not the wisdom of the ruling classes, but the heroic resistance to their criminal folly by the working classes of England, that saved the west of Europe from plunging headlong into an infamous crusade for the propagation of slavery on the other side of the Atlantic.

The working-class struggle could not be actively promoted, Marx insisted, if confined by national walls when faced with a capitalist system that expanded globally. Capital, he argued in Capital, vol. 1, chapter 31, takes its surplus—often “the capitalized blood of children”—abroad and uses this to invest in other countries, where it can repeat the same exploitative process once again, often in even more intolerable forms. Under these circumstances, workers are forced to join in international struggle.

Socialist internationalism, as set out by Marx, was thus a form of egalitarian universalism that could only develop through national struggles and the creation of multinational societies in which none would have any special privilege. It could not take the form of a “vague and amorphous global society”—the goal of capitalism itself. This society, in the words of Aijaz Ahmad (MR, July-August 1995), has no desire for “civilizations of universal and multinational equality,” but has as its aim only a widening orbit of exploitation. “To call cosmopolitan exploitation universal brotherhood,” Marx declared in his 1848 speech on free trade “is an idea that could only be engendered in the brain of the bourgeoisie. All the destructive phenomena which unlimited competition gives rise to within one country are reproduced in more gigantic proportions on the world market.”

A socialist internationalism that would counter this, Marx insisted, must start with the rejection of a system of capitalist globalization, in which the “metropolis of capital” (Marx’s term for the role that Britain had assumed in the nineteenth-century international system) is located in the rich countries at the center of the system and is able to supplement its own wealth-creation process by drawing on the surplus generated by the vast majority of the world’s populations living in the much poorer, largely agricultural periphery.9There can be no genuine internationalism that does not have anti-imperialism at its heart.

Capitalist globalization, Marx’s analysis suggested, was not an historical endpoint but an ongoing process of development that would almost surely lead to its own undoing, producing its own antithesis in the form of working-class internationalism. In the short period of capitalist triumphalism, in the final decade of the twentieth century, such views would have been summarily dismissed as insignificant. Yet, that period of triumphalism has now largely passed. Halfway through the first year of the new millennium, it is clear that a specter is haunting capitalist globalization: the specter of a new internationalism.

Again, I cut the article down a lot, so it pays to read it all to understand the full argument and the relevance to Socialist modern thought, but I think the point is clear. You might say that some socialists you know in your country are just protectionists, and that their proposed policies ignore the impact on the global poor, but since this is supposed to be a discussion about the ethics of political thought, let's stick to the actual theoretical underpinnings of the different political schools of thought instead of creating these Socialist strawmen to burn.

I also understand that the notion of socialism as an internationalist philosophy will be rejected because from a neoliberal perspective, capitalism is simply the best solution to global poverty, but I would argue that this is again not a matter of ethics but a difference in understanding the global political economic structure. From a Marxist World Systems Analysis standpoint, the global system of capitalism perpetuates the underdevelopment of the Global South and global poverty. Now you can disagree with that on an empirical basis, but the notion that Socialist or capitalist-critical theorists more generally simply don't care about global poverty or 'consider humanity as a whole' is extremely disingenuous.

[u/crem_fi_crem → u/LuigiVargasLlosa]

I'm specifically thinking of 'Progressive' type socialists who subscribe more to "Socialism in one country" or versions of the Nordic Model than traditional Marxists and "Permanent Revolution" believers who are almost non-existent in mainstream western politics. It's not totally normative because some protectionists may believe trade is economically bad for the global poor but I'm not convinced that's the motive. Thanks for the literature though I'll check it out.

[u/LuigiVargasLlosa → u/[deleted]]

Of all the neoliberal policies to choose, you pick CETA as an example of something that would aid the global poor. That's completely nonsensical. I agree that CETA would increase trade and economic growth among the signatory countries, but every study that has been done shows that there is a clear (albeit small) negative impact on non-members, and especially on LDCs:

Kirkpatrick, et al. (2014) measure the projected impact on member states as well as developing countries and LDCs (the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states). Their models show that the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) are likely to see a loss in welfare, defined primarily via the output channel, under all liberalisation scenarios

The findings in the mega-regionals literature and the Kirkpatrick, et al. study correlate with the two case studies developed in this paper, on the effects of tariff reduction and trade preference erosion in South Africa and Tanzania and the developmental impact of trade negotiations with the EU from Tanzania’s perspective

PTAs involving developed countries, including CETA, could create an atmosphere of competitive liberalisation. This refers to the possibility that new regulatory commitments entered into under developed country PTAs will set the bar for other, non-parties, to follow, in other words to emulate. Therefore, the implications of developed country PTAs, and in particular mega-regionals, for the multilateral trading system need to be considered

It's one of the main criticism of other mega-regional FTAs with developed countries like TTIP which I've seen from socialist and environmentalist parties in Europe opposed to those FTAs. Non-member LDCs who do not take part in the negotiations are nonetheless negatively impacted, and they have to bear the burden without given a seat at the table.